Celebrations of spring capture colors of the season

When I was very young, my parents dressed my sister and me up in fancy outfits on Easter Sunday — my sister in a brightly colored dress with a pinafore and me in a seersucker suit and bow tie. My mother actually made the clothes. She measured us, selected fabric and sewed our new Easter outfits.

On Easter mornings we knew the Easter bunny had come, and we ran out to the yard to search for eggs. My sister found all the eggs. I didn’t get the egg-finding gene, so there was usually this sorting-out period when she needed to be convinced to share some of her eggs with me.

Later, the same thing would happen with my kids, looking for the afikomen — a piece of matzo hidden during Passover. I married into a Jewish family and, even though the Easter Bunny came to our house too, finding the afikomen was a much bigger deal. I guess because it paid off in real money.

This year, the holidays are in close proximity on the calendar.

I don’t think it is unusual that Christians celebrate the rebirth of Jesus and Jews celebrate the rebirth of their nation at the advent of spring. Life has its cycles of dark and light, cold and warmth, death and renewal. As humans, no matter our heritage, this time of year is significant.

In Palm Beach, I think we’ve been able to capture this rite of spring in a bottle. From November through May, people from Northern climes travel here and, upon arriving, don pink, yellow and aqua fashions. Shucking browns and grays, they must feel initially clownish, but upon joining the bright parade with others on the vias and avenues, experience a wonderful renewal.

Legend has it that Lilly Pulitzer chose busy patterns of brightly– colored fabric for her dresses to mask orange juice splashes from running her juice stand on Worth Avenue. That may be. But whatever the inspiration, she would define the essence of Palm Beach — and resort culture around the world.

The fact that those colors are the same as Easter egg colors doesn’t surprise me. I did a whimsical cartoon about it. It wasn’t prompted by a news story, but a realization that Palm Beach is all about optimism and vitality. Like finding Easter eggs, the joy is in seeing what was right in front of you.

David Willson has been the Palm Beach Daily News editorial cartoonist for 20 years. His new book, Billionaires and Butterfly Ballots, A 20-Year Palm Beach ‘Cartoonspective,’ is available at palmbeachcartoons.com